A group of German architects and planners has started a campaign to rebuild the Wolf House, widely seen as a link between van der Rohe’s early, more conventional designs and his later buildings, like the Barcelona Pavilion and the Farnsworth House, that would redefine modern architecture. [...]
But the plan has run into resistance from other architects and scholars who say that the Wolf House would be too hard to reconstruct [...].
— nytimes.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Two of a kind: photographer Robin Hill contemplates the Farnsworth House and Glass House simultaneouslyRedesign of DC's main Mies library tip-toes around the good and the badDavid Chipperfield pledges to carefully "optimize" Mies van der Rohe's Neue... View full entry
Foster + Partners’ plans for the overhaul of London’s Grade II-listed Whiteleys shopping centre have got the go-ahead – despite opposition from locals.
Westminster City Council approved the contentious scheme last night, but will now look into setting conditions concerning the scale of two residential towers that form part of the proposal, alongside a gym, hotel, cinema and new shops.
— thespaces.com
For more on listed projects, take a look at previous coverage here:Another Grade II listed building loses its protected status in north east EnglandSex Pistols graffiti secures famous Tin Pan Alley building Grade 2* listed status View full entry
With The Frick Collection’s garden saved, the museum is moving forward with a new preservationist-friendly plan for expansion...The Frick Collection, looking to realize a revised expansion for the institution, has put forward a request for qualifications to a chosen group of architectural firms.
The Frick plans to announce its selected finalist later this year, and plans to reveal designs in 2017.
— Observer
Museum director Ian Wardropper tells The New York Times that 20 firms have been invited to submit RFQs.Previously on Archinect:Frick Collection drops controversial expansion planLeading artists call to action against the Frick expansion plans View full entry
A drone skyscraper has been proposed by designers Hadeel Ayed Mohammed, Yifeng Zhao and Chengda Zhu that acts as a central control terminal for drones to dock and recharge, situated in the heart of Manhattan.
The ‘dronescraper’, dubbed ‘the hive’ has been proposed as an alternative to Rafael Vinoy’s 432 Park Avenue superstructure, which is set to become the tallest residential tower in the western hemisphere.
— Design MENA
The skyscraper has been undergoing some significant design reconceptualizations lately. Here's a round-up of the most interesting takes:A closer look at BIG's West 57th Street "courtscraper"Screen/Print #30: SOILED's "Cloudscrapers"A bamboo skyscraper fosters public life View full entry
A first-in-the-nation complex to be built in Hollywood would house about 200 LGBT seniors and young adults on the same campus.
Lorrie Jean, CEO of the the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which is building the $100 million complex, calls the two generation groups "the two most vulnerable parts of our community."
— scpr.org
Related stories in the Archinect news:As "gayborhoods" gentrify, LGBTQ people move into conservative AmericaHomes of the homeless, seized: L.A. cracks down on free housingToilets for everyone: the politics of inclusive design View full entry
In collaboration with Laisné Roussel and developer Pitch Promotion, Sou Fujimoto's proposed 50-meter tall mixed-use timber-frame structure Canopia would be the tallest of its kind if built. Riffing a bit off the swirling form of Fujimoto's Abre Blanc apartment building, the proposed structure... View full entry
A “strikingly elegant” office building in the north east of England is set to be demolished after losing its protected status just a year on from being listed. It will be the latest in a series of important modernist buildings in the area to be flattened in recent years. — independent.co.uk
[Utzon] wrote to his idol, boldly sending his designs of the Opera House and asking Le Corbusier to contribute in the form of “decoration, carpets and paintings”. His idol wrote back, and by October 1960 the young Utzon was the proud owner of a striking tapestry [...]
The piece is now hanging behind glass in the far end of the Utzon-designed western foyer: a holding place while the Opera House continues the “decade of renewal” that will lead up to its 50th anniversary in 2023.
— theguardian.com
Another look at the tapestry, as it was hung in Jørn Utzon's home in Denmark:Related on Archinect:The Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon Celebrates Its 40th AnniversaryJørn Utzon dead at 90Rare film of Le Corbusier in his Paris home and studioLe Corbusier in Color View full entry
To those concerned about the renovation of the Hood Museum of Art, the situation is charged with paradox: The architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, who protested the Museum of Modern Art’s dismantling of the Folk Art Museum they designed in Manhattan, are now transforming the Hood, an award-winning museum designed by Charles Moore [...].
“It’s almost as if they were getting revenge for what MoMA did to their Folk Art Museum [...] It’s totally insensitive to the Moore building.”
— nytimes.com
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien previously in the Archinect news:"Starts with me, ends with us": A conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Archinect Sessions Episode #22Tod Williams and Billie Tsien presented with National Medal of Arts by President ObamaTod Williams & Billie Tsien... View full entry
It was supposed to be a strutting 150-story lakefront symbol of the city's virility — but eight years after construction of the Chicago Spire skyscraper ground to a halt, the gaping hole where it was to have stood has instead become an enduring reminder of the Great Recession.
So owner Related Midwest is now hiding the unsightly circular hole that would have formed the foundation of the world's second-tallest building behind a pile of dirt.
— chicagotribune.com
The Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire project previously in the Archinect news:Looks Like Calatrava Won't Get Paid for His Chicago Spire WorkChicago Spire developer wants to resume projectChicago Spire developer in talks with AFL-CIO for funding View full entry
No longer confined to collecting dust in storage rooms, over a thousand slides documenting modern architecture's emergence in Southern California have been digitized by the USC Library, and are now available to view for free online.The approximately 1300 slides were culled from the collections of... View full entry
In Tijuana, another architect is devising a plan to turn the Tijuana River channel into a solar farm that could provide power to as many as 30,000 homes.
Rene Peralta, co-founder of the Tijuana firm Generica and director of an architecture master's program at San Diego's Woodbury University, thinks that his city can transform this unwieldy piece of infrastructure into a renewable energy plant and water-cleaning station.
— The Los Angeles Times
February 2016 was the hottest month in several thousand years, so it seems like a good idea to start transforming erstwhile urban heat islands into power-generating rivers. Below, Generica's rendering of the proposed redesigned Tijuana river channel:For more on projects that turn seemingly... View full entry
Everyone loves the free samples, kitschy items, and affordable price points of SoCal grocer Trader Joe’s. The one thing that does spark ire about the chain is the small parking lots, which produce equal amounts of anxiety and horn abuse. But the website Strong Towns points out that TJ’s small footprints trickle down to cheaper prices for consumers. — Los Angeles Magazine
If you're not within walking distance of a TJ's (or, if you're just lazy) parking in one of the lots requires the steady nerves of a Zen master and the spatial dexterity of an architect. Whatever method you use to get there, just don't forget your bag, or all of your kitschy sustainability cred... View full entry
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really.
Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful...
— the Los Angeles Times
"...at least not in the way that Calatrava's finest work, fluid and precise, often is. I found it structurally overwrought and emotionally underwhelming, straining for higher meaning, eager to wring some last drops of mournful power from a site that is already crammed with official, semi-official... View full entry
The cartoon drawings and graffiti scrawled all over the 1970s hangout of the Sex Pistols - a former silversmith’s workshop attached to a townhouse in London’s Denmark Street – have helped the building be awarded Grade 2* Listed Status.
The decision by the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, on advice from Historic England, is a major victory in the campaign to maintain Denmark Street, known as “Tin Pan Alley”, which is widely seen as a spiritual home for British popular music.
— independent.co.uk
